Blackhead Antrim. Blacksod Lighthouse Mayo. Clare Island Mayo. Fanad Head Donegal. Fastnet Rock Cork. Galley Head Cork. Hook Wexford. Loop Head Clare. Rathlin West Light Antrim. The Great Light Antrim. Valentia Island Kerry. Wicklow Head Wicklow. Fastnet Rock Boat Tours. She's also written a memoir about her life, focusing on her time on Lennard Island, called Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper , which was published in Searching for adventure.
Woodward and George moved to Lennard Island back in Previously, Woodward worked for many years in publishing "in various capacities including 'slush pile' editor, publicist, managing editor, bookseller, publishers' sales representative, creative writing teacher.
Woodward's also traveled extensively, including a solo bicycle ride through Greece and a period spent hiking through Nepal. Woodward's always loved writing, but when she and George married and had their son, Seamus, she'd found it harder to find the time to work on her books. By the mid-noughties, Seamus was grown up, and Woodward was searching for "another way to buy myself time to write. Her own childhood, she suggests, helped pave the way for both her career as an author and her role as a lighthouse keeper.
Woodward grew up in the s and 60s on what she describes as a "homestead" in British Columbia. She was one of three children of her Dutch mother and Welsh father, who'd met during the Second World War and emigrated to Canada. We had horses for transportation until a tractor and then a car were bought while I was in elementary school," she recalls.
Woodward and her husband were inspired to turn to lighthouse life after an serendipitous meeting with a relief lightkeeper on a British Columbia ferry, back in Woodward got chatting to him, and she was immediately entranced by his stories, and intrigued by the lighthouse lifestyle. She'd figured staffed lighthouses were a thing of the past, but was delighted to hear she was wrong. Initially George became a relief lightkeeper, temporarily stationed at various lighthouses across BC while Woodward remained on land.
Later, George applied for the open post at Lennard Island and Woodward became the assistant keeper. Around BC, these ground-lit beacons were raised onto towers, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria. But as marine navigation tools and satellite automation have become more sophisticated, the need for lighthouses and their human operators has been virtually snuffed out.
In fact, with the exception of seasonal volunteers and educational guides, there are hardly any lighthouse keepers left on the planet. One stalwart sentinel remains in South Africa; three in France; a handful in India, Myanmar also known as Burma and Portugal; and fewer than 50 in Canada. Then in , a navy commander tipped him off that a rare position was opening at Punta Carena, and that his decades of experience as a nautical technician, harbour pilot and sailor would make him a good fit.
Credit: Eliot Stein. But when I did, it was love at first sight. Rising 28m atop a narrow limestone bluff that plunges into the ocean, Punta Carena casts a striking image.
Modern scholars have wondered if mercury, not isolation, was behind reports of lighthouse keepers behaving erratically or losing sanity, since chronic mercury poisoning causes confusion, depression, and hallucinations. His wife, Maggie, who lived with him on the island, also complained of his violent behavior. Released in June after an apparent recovery, he returned to the lighthouse only to be committed again in April Lighthouses likely attracted some folks who had trouble fitting into society, but the keeper of Clipperton Island was an extreme case.
Since , Clipperton Island had supported a small guano-mining colony, but by political tumult in Mexico stopped supply ships from replenishing the community, leaving the remaining people on the island hungry. The only available food was birds and their eggs, which led to widespread scurvy. Four men set off in a boat for help, but they all drowned, leaving lighthouse keeper Victoriano Alvarez the only man on an island with about a dozen women.
He grabbed a rifle, threw the rest of the weapons in the ocean, and enslaved the women, abusing them physically, mentally, and sexually.
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